Dandenong the most disadvantaged urban area

One in nine people living in Melbourne's affluent eastern middle suburbs has Chinese ancestry; the Broadmeadows region has the highest concentration of Muslims in the nation; and the Dandenong region is the most disadvantaged area in all of urban Australia.

Welcome to Melbourne in the 21st century, as portrayed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in a new breakdown of the 2001 census data into 15 suburban regions.

They show an amazing mosaic of different income levels, ethnic backgrounds, religious affiliations, education levels and housing types and costs.

In Melbourne overall, most migrants are British. But in western Melbourne and Dandenong the main migrant population is Vietnamese. In the city of Hume around Broadmeadows, it is Turkish. And throughout the rest of northern Melbourne it is still Italian.

In the city of Moreland, 21 per cent of residents are of Italian ancestry, the highest in Australia, 9 per cent are Greek and 6.5 per cent speak Arabic at home.

But the Dandenong area has the biggest concentration of non-Anglo migrants, mostly Asian, with 55 per cent of residents speaking languages other than English at home.

Similarly, Catholics have the numbers as the main religious denomination throughout most of Melbourne. But in inner Melbourne and the outer Yarra Ranges, Catholics are outnumbered by people declaring no religion on their census form.

The Mornington Peninsula is the last stronghold of the Anglicans, and the city of Hume has a higher concentration of Muslims than anywhere in Australia, with 12 per cent of the population following Islam.

The neighbouring outer northern suburbs around Mill Park have Australia's highest concentration of Orthodox Christians with 14 per cent. Dandenong's population of Buddhists (13 per cent) ranked just behind Sydney's Cabramatta.

Wealth varies greatly across the regions. Boroondara city (Hawthorn, Kew, Canterbury) and inner Melbourne stand out clearly as the two richest areas. Boroondara had the highest average household income ($1159 a week in 2001), but inner Melbourne the highest average individual income ($552).

Dandenong was the poorest area on virtually every measure, with individual incomes averaging $264. The bureau ranked it the most disadvantaged area in urban Australia, while Boroondara was judged the most advantaged.

Unemployment on census night was 4.4 per cent in Boroondara and 11.3 per cent in Dandenong. In Boroondara, 60 per cent of households had computers and 45 per cent had the internet.

In Dandenong the proportions were 34 per cent and 22 per cent, respectively. The census also found that one in 40 households in Dandenong held two or more families, and one in 12 households suffered overcrowding. However, it had the cheapest rents ($137 a week) and the lowest mortgage repayments ($178 a week).

The outer south-eastern suburbs had the highest proportion of mortgages, school students and male workers. The Melton area had the most children (25 per cent of people under 15) and inner Melbourne the fewest (10 per cent).